8. KATHERINE RICH (National) Link to this
to the Minister of Education
What specific procedure does his ministry follow when approached by a board of trustees with sexual abuse allegations against a school principal?
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) Link to this
The Ministry of Education seeks an immediate assurance that the students of the school are safe. All boards of trustees are required to have an appropriate complaints process in place, and these are vetted by the Education Review Office. The Ministry of Education is responsible for providing advice to boards about the proper conduct of investigations and the policies and procedures they have in place. Schools may also seek assistance from the New Zealand School Trustees Association, which is contracted by the ministry to provide boards of trustees with administrative advice. School principals are employed by boards of trustees. All employment-related matters, including the handling of complaints, are the responsibility of the board of trustees in the first instance.
Why did not the Ministry of Education, after months of involvement, advise the board of Hato Pāora College that serious sex crime allegations made against the school’s principal should be put in the hands of the police for investigation?
I am advised by the chair of the board of trustees that she has personally assured the member Katherine Rich that the school is satisfied with the assistance it received and continues to receive from the Ministry of Education. She has further advised her not to upset students and the rest of the school community by attempting to make political capital of this traumatic situation, just as the National Certificate of Educational Achievement examinations are about to begin. Frankly, I think it is a disgrace that a member of Parliament would attempt to get a cheap political headline out of these serious sexual abuse allegations.
Hon Marian HobbsWhat support does the Ministry of Education make available to schools that have experienced such significant incidents?
When a school experiences a traumatic incident, the ministry’s traumatic incident team contacts the school and offers support. The first step is to seek an assurance from the school that all students are safe. Support is then focused on maintaining normal school activities to the fullest possible extent; providing culture-appropriate and age-appropriate responses; providing support in meeting immediate needs; providing an understanding of what happens next; and providing clear communication to parents, pupils, staff, and the community, where appropriate. Each district has a team of two to six staff who have been trained in this work. Traumatic incident support was independently reviewed in 2001, and schools and early childhood services spoke highly of the support. Support has been offered several times to Hato Pāora College since the first suggestions of difficulty, in August. At this stage, the school has not availed itself of the support offered by the traumatic incident team. The school is being supported by the ministry’s school performance team.
What does the Minister say to Kiwi parents who are horrified to find out that when a school board contacts the Ministry of Education to seek advice about how to deal with serious allegations of sexual abuse of students by a principal, the ministry is so out of touch with what parents think that it does not offer the logical advice that the allegations should be put in the hands of the police for them to investigate?
The ministry took every appropriate step it needed to in this situation to ensure that the students were safe, and to give the board of trustees as much support as possible. Once again, I remind the House that this member has jumped into a very serious situation, a very sensitive situation—a situation that affects parents, students, and teachers at a school—to try to get a cheap headline. She should be ashamed of herself.
When the Minister admits that this situation is serious for parents and for students, why cannot his ministry officials give basic advice to schools; are they so busy doing PC hand-wringing that they cannot look at the basic issue, which is that when serious allegations such as this come to the fore, the schools should go to the police to have them investigated?
I remind the House, again, that since these allegations appeared in August this school has received every appropriate support from the ministry. We have been working with the board of trustees, parents, and the school community to make sure that the students are safe and that this process is handled appropriately and fairly. I remind the House, again, that this is a very serious situation for this school community—the pupils, parents, and teachers involved. That member should be ashamed of herself for trying to get a cheap headline out of it.
If this issue is so serious, why was it not put in the hands of the police, who have the skills and knowledge to undertake this kind of investigation? When the board did its investigation it cleared the gentleman, and only after the media brought the issue to the attention of the police were the police briefed enough to go forward and actually investigate it properly.
Once again, the member is treading into the situation, and she is not giving the House a clear and accurate account of what happened. I do not want to go into the details of this case, because it is currently before the courts. But I can assure the House that the board followed the appropriate steps, including referring the case to Child, Youth and Family, which it is required by law to do. It is my understanding that the police have commented that the board carried out an entirely correct investigation. Subsequently, one of the people who had made the complaint went to the police, and the police got more evidence. But I am already beginning to get into the details of the case, and it is not appropriate for any of us to do that.